Woodland and the 2 Bears

OK, guys.   In this post, I'll talk a little about the Woodland Line for Denishima Designs.  Warning:  if "cute" is not your thing, you can just skip all of this now.  It's not even "cute" with an edge.  No edge.  Just "cute".  Now's your chance... go!  Run!  Scappa!

OK, now that all those with cuteness aversion have left, we can now revel freely in this sugar-coated post.  Yes, indeed, "cute" will have to be tolerated to continue... so here we go.  Woodland is just a line of art made to celebrate animals.... mainly cute animals.  Sometimes I do try to add a little humor  to keep it interesting.  It is a line actually inspired by my nieces, who of course, all love animals, and I basically think about what image would please them when I'm working on it.   I do tend to focus on the animals the girls love the most so you could say that, in essence, this line is dedicated to them. 

The first design in this line to talk about is the "hello! 2 bears" image that features both a panda (which I realize is not really a bear) and a regular brown bear.  They are both greeting each other, but the panda is speaking in Chinese, saying "Ni hao" and the brown bear is speaking in English.

I got the idea from a quick sketch I had done of this bear.

I thought it was kind of funny... and then began thinking about 2 bears meeting each other... and then I started thinking about all the ethnic mixes we have in the world.  My family has a few... and Chinese, being one of them, became the perfect fit for what I had in mind.  I decided to go with a quick sketch look to the character and keep  the unrefined feel of the image.  A panda.... my LA nieces love the panda!  After coloring him, I merely flopped him (love the computer!) and then adjusted his color to be the brown bear.  Is that cheating?  a little, but you artists out there know that any short cut you can take will buy some rest in the end, right?  Also, I thought it essential that the bears be exactly a mirror image of each other as part of the message... that even though we all seem different on the outside, we are more similar than we realize.  This represents the coming together of the different cultures in my family.  The Asian side, and the Europeans create quite a mix!  But together, we are all family, no matter where we come from.

And there it is, the first in a whole line of "cute".    Hope you enjoyed the sharing session!